Jul 21 2017

This Week in Forensic Science

No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!

Two medieval mummies from an Arctic civilization have been discovered at the edge of Siberia. The remains of an adult and a baby were found in the Zelenyy Yar necropolis, an archaeological complex discovered in 1997. They were covered in copper, the adult having been plated from head to toe.

Traces of biomolecules such as DNA can be detected with a new “dynamic” technique based on the observation of association and dissociation events of gold nanoparticles. If the desired DNA sequence is present, it can reversibly bind two nanoparticles together. This can be detected in real time through a change in light scattering. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, this method differentiates true signals from noise and can detect deviations of individual bases.

In a surreal development almost worthy of one of his paintings, Salvador Dalí’s grave is scheduled to be opened tomorrow (July 20) in an effort to collect DNA samples that could settle a paternity claim against the artist’s estate.

More than 40 years later, a detective from Illinois arrived at the family’s home to tell Haakenson’s relatives that at some point after hanging up the phone, the teenager crossed paths with serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Haakenson’s body, it turns out, was among dozens found in a crawl space of Gacy’s Chicago-area home in 1978. But the remains were only recently identified thanks to DNA technology that wasn’t available then, the Cook County Sheriff’s Department announced Wednesday.

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